Two Albert Lea residents, Edward F.

Friday, January 11, 2002

Two Albert Lea residents, Edward F. Fosse and Jan Jerdee, recently brought in copies of Bond, a publication of the Lutheran Brotherhood in Minneapolis. And on the cover of the September/October 2001 issue is the photo of the coach of one of the nation’s outstanding college football teams.

That team happens to be the &uot;Lutes&uot; of Pacific Lutheran University of Tacoma, Wash. There’s an interesting local connection with three of the coaches of this year’s team.

The head coach of the Lutes, and the person pictured on the magazine cover, is Forrest &uot;Frosty&uot; Westering. From 1966 to 1972 he was the head coach of the Lea College Lancers football team. His son, Scott Westering, who attended school here in Albert Lea, has been the Lutes’ offensive coordinator since 1984.

And what may be somewhat unusual in college football, there was a third generation member of this family on the Lutes’ coaching staff this year. He’s Frosty’s grandson and Scott’s nephew, Chad Johnson. Chad’s mother, Holly, graduated from Albert Lea High School in 1970. His father, Jim Johnson, is also an Albert Lea High School graduate.

Chad, who graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in the spring of 2001, was the star quarterback of the Lutes football team. During the past season with its eight wins and three losses record, he was one of the assistant coaches.

Frosty is considered to be one of the nation’s top football coaches, part of the very exclusive group who have won more than 250 games. His updated record for 37 years of coaching (29 years at Pacific Lutheran, six years at Lea College, and two years at Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa) is 294 wins, 89 losses and seven ties.

One of these losses was in a game with Minnesota’s &uot;Johnnies&uot; of St. John’s University. This was the fourth game between these top NCAA Division III teams.

This year the playoff game on Dec. 1, 2001, between the Lutes and Johnnies was supposed to be played at Clemens Field in Collegeville. However, adverse field conditions created by a rainstorm, then a snowstorm, resulted in a change to the Fargodome in Fargo, N.D. This game resulted in a 31-6 win for another of the nation’s top football coaches, John Gagliardi of St. John’s University, Collegeville.

St. John’s played Mt. Union College of Alliance, Ohio, on Dec. 8, 2001, and lost this game with a score of 34-14. Mt. Union, incidentally, is one of the best small college teams in the nation, winning the NCAA Division III title for four out of five seasons, In 1999 the Lutes won this honor.

Nick Dawson, sports information director for Pacific Lutheran University, recently sent some interesting statistics to the Tribune by fax.

For example, Coach Gagliardi of St. John’s has been coaching for 49 years. And like Frosty he has a son (Jim Gagliardi) who is in his tenth year on the coaching staff as St. John’s coordinator.

Only eight college coaches in the nation have attained the 300-win record. John Gagliardi has 388 wins. Eddie Robinson of Louisiana’s Grambling University has the top place with 408 victories. For 74-year-old Frosty, all it takes is six wins next fall for him to join this exclusive group.

Dawson also provided this rather unusual bit of information about the Lutes. This team has scored points in every football game played (win or lose) since 1979.

The article in the Lutheran Brotherhood magazine, Bond, really reinforces what Sports Illustrated said in the Aug. 14, 2000 issue. This national publication declared the Lutes were &uot;The Nicest Team in Football.&uot;

Credit for this comes from Frosty’s superb leadership. His philosophy for leadership and success is expressed in part with the title of his book, &uot;Make the Big Time Where You Are.&uot; Another part could be with the quotation I found in the Bond article: &uot;You don’t have a good day. You make it a good day.&uot;

Feature writer Ed Shannon’s column appears Fridays in the Tribune.